Musk, the World's First Trillionaire - Is He Worth It?

[EEVblog]

The biggest problem I have with Tesla is they seemed to become single-minded on eliminating some quite useful things in cars, like door handles, gear selectors and levers for indicators and wipers.  To save a few bucks they eliminate parts that can be replaced with software, which makes the car actively worse to use.

I'd agree with that. I mean, seriously, what's wrong with normal door handles?

Believe or not, aerodynamics and fuel saving. 

Half a bee's dick worth.

[Cyclotron]

Flush door handles were patented by Merc in the 1960s?  They could do flush (I'd rather them not) and still keep it mechanical.  The AMC Pacer in the 70s had flush handles that were mechanical.


 

[tom66]

Flush door handles would be fine provided they are immediately obvious to users and are purely mechanical.  I have seen several Uber Tesla Model 3's with signs on the door showing how to operate the handle.  A little cutout at one end of the door handle would make it obvious what the action is and have barely any impact on aerodynamics.

[Psi]

Flush door handles would be fine provided they are immediately obvious to users and are purely mechanical.  I have seen several Uber Tesla Model 3's with signs on the door showing how to operate the handle.  A little cutout at one end of the door handle would make it obvious what the action is and have barely any impact on aerodynamics.

yes, this is where I stand too.

Half a bee's dick worth.

I think it somewhat significant, not huge, but gets you a few km more range, which makes sense.
ChatGPT and Gemini are saying in the 1km to 8km range, Grok 1.6 to 3 km.
And I'm pretty sure people have done the math on this and it was around there.
It's all the tiny savings adding up that give the Model 3 such good range

[brucehoult]

Cars/trucks last around 15-20 years, depending on the state.

As a fleet average, in the USA, yeah.

Here in New Zealand the average car age is 15 years with 40% older than that. The average motorcycle is 19 years old. The average petrol car is used for 195k km, the average diesel car 242k km.

I myself buy lowish mileage (80k to 100k km) cars that are already .. well my current one was 12 years old (now 18) and the previous one (in NZ) was 15 years old when I bought it, 22 years old when I sold it but if I hadn't been moved to the US for I thought 6 years then I wouldn't have sold it.

I can't see any reason why I won't use my current lovely car (2008 Subaru Outback 2.5xt Eyesight) until it is 25 years old, if not 30. Probably only banning petrol or taxing it excessively would stop me. I think oil prices will DROP as EVs take over and demand drops.

[PlainName]

I think oil prices will DROP as EVs take over and demand drops.

Doesn't OPEC keep them up by reducing production? An actual legal price-fixing organisation of countries which would be very illegal within those countries 

[NE666]

I think it somewhat significant, not huge, but gets you a few km more range, which makes sense.
ChatGPT and Gemini are saying in the 1km to 8km range, Grok 1.6 to 3 km.

Imho, there's no sense at all in compromising safety or inviting additional complexity and failure modes in return for such a paltry economy gain. It is what it is, a primarily aesthetics-led decision.

0.25 - 1.33% is way down in the noise as compared to many other factors e.g. predominant head or tail wind, air con / heater settings, outside temperature, driving style etc. etc. And as Gemini notes in its very similar response, it appears that there is no gain whatsoever for 'stop-and-go' journeys around town and in urban areas. It only comes into play at all when travelling at highway / motorway speeds.

[Psi]

I think it somewhat significant, not huge, but gets you a few km more range, which makes sense.
ChatGPT and Gemini are saying in the 1km to 8km range, Grok 1.6 to 3 km.

Imho, there's no sense at all in compromising safety or inviting additional complexity and failure modes in return for such a paltry economy gain. It is what it is, a primarily aesthetics-led decision.

You maybe thinking of the old model S where there was a motor that made them 'pop out'. I agree that was a safety issue.
They don't do that any more. The model 3/Y are flush but the movement is mechanical in terms of moving the handle. You press them in and they rotate out. The safety issue isn't that they are flush it's the electrical switch being used to link them to the lock rather than a cable.

It's definitely an aerodynamics decision more than an aesthetics-led decision. There lots of these small range improving things done on the Model 3.

[temperance]

You people are battling over door handles? A recurring theme on this forum. Scope handles, door handles,...

The discussion is: Is He Worth It?

No. Here is another argument: there are far more important problems to solve than flying to Mars.

An old debate, late nineties and early 2000:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14777620902768867#:~:text=Rocket%20combustion%20products%20are%20the,8

If we want to solve the problems we are facing here, we must first understand how the eco system we live in works and doesn't work. We do know something about it but not much. But researching those matters don't make you a trillionaire, ratrher a regular earthling, and what he is doing isn't going to solve anything. It's just an expensive hobby project wasting resources.

But let's discuss the door handles on the Starship.

[brucehoult]

I think oil prices will DROP as EVs take over and demand drops.

Doesn't OPEC keep them up by reducing production? An actual legal price-fixing organisation of countries which would be very illegal within those countries 

In 1973 OPEC was about 55% of world oil production, now they're down to about 35%.

As overall demand reduces that share can go as close to 0% as they want it to.

Ukraine is temporarily reducing the on-OPEC Russia's production from the pre-war 13% or 14% to about 10% last year and rapidly heading lower, but they pretty much don't have anything else to export so they're going to be pumping like crazy as soon as they are able to again.

[tom66]

I think it somewhat significant, not huge, but gets you a few km more range, which makes sense.
ChatGPT and Gemini are saying in the 1km to 8km range, Grok 1.6 to 3 km.

Imho, there's no sense at all in compromising safety or inviting additional complexity and failure modes in return for such a paltry economy gain. It is what it is, a primarily aesthetics-led decision.

The safety issue is the electronic vs mechanical linkage thing, which is totally unrelated to being flush.

It's definitely an aerodynamics decision more than an aesthetics-led decision. There lots of these small range improving things done on the Model 3.

The 'being flush' issue is a problem for safety though. Say a car - any car - gets into an accident and bystanders try to help but they can't figure out the non-obvious door handles.  Even if there's a mechanical linkage precious time could be lost trying to get someone out of a car if they were not familiar with the design.  Adding human cues, like a place to grab or place a finger, immediately improves the safety of the system.

[Psi]

The 'being flush' issue is a problem for safety though. Say a car - any car - gets into an accident and bystanders try to help but they can't figure out the non-obvious door handles.  Even if there's a mechanical linkage precious time could be lost trying to get someone out of a car if they were not familiar with the design.  Adding human cues, like a place to grab or place a finger, immediately improves the safety of the system.

They aren't that non-obvious. It's the sort of thing you fumble with for a second or two before opening the door the first time.

New ways of doing things are always going to cause issues as people get used to them.
I agree they could be more intuitive but i don't think we should ban flush handles because people who have not used one before fumble a bit the first time. It seems a bit anti-progress.
The flush design concept should simply be made more intuitive.

[temperance]

It's definitely an aerodynamics decision more than an aesthetics-led decision. There lots of these small range improving things done on the Model 3.

At an average speed of 50 km/h, the aerodynamics of a door handle, unless they would be huge in comparison to the width of the wheels and wheel arches, aren't going to have serious impact.
​

[Psi]

It's definitely an aerodynamics decision more than an aesthetics-led decision. There lots of these small range improving things done on the Model 3.

At an average speed of 50 km/h, the aerodynamics of a door handle, unless they would be huge in comparison to the width of the wheels and wheel arches, aren't going to have serious impact.
​

Yep, it's definitely not a 'serious impact' by any means. Just a km or so more range.
Every little bit helps with EV's.  If you can have it, and the flush door handle is made intuitive, why not.

[temperance]

Every little bit helps with EV's.  If you can have it, and the flush door handle is made intuitive, why not.

If Musk is about saving the planet with electric cars and going as far reducing the drag coefficient to very low numbers, then why are they build with the ability to accelerate at a rate exceeding those of a formula 1 car? Accelerating from 0...100 requires the same energy no matter the rate. The power required to do so in 1.5 sec instead of let's say 6 seconds becomes, not accounting for quadratic I²R losses, 4 times higher. If you do this a few times in a row, a Tesla starts to limit the rate of acceleration in order to not overheat the 700 kg battery. And then, people talk nonsense about the drag coefficient of a door handle. 

This is just marketing nonsense. If you really want to compare normal door handles with those fancy ones, you must factor in the weight of the assembly as well. Together with the acceleration it probably totals out below zero.

[Psi]

Every little bit helps with EV's.  If you can have it, and the flush door handle is made intuitive, why not.

If Musk is about saving the planet with electric cars and going as far reducing the drag coefficient to very low numbers, then why are they build with the ability to accelerate at a rate exceeding those of a formula 1 car? Accelerating from 0...100 requires the same energy no matter the rate. The power required to do so 1.5 sec instead of let's say 6 seconds becomes, not accounting for quadratic I²R losses, 4 times higher.

You do realize you can do all those at the same time. You can optimize the range to be as good as practical while also making the car really fun to drive, and also be running a car company because the transition to EVs helps the planet a little.

This is just marketing nonsense. If you really want to compare normal door handles with those fancy ones, you must factor in the weight of the assembly as well. Together with the acceleration it probably totals out below zero.

To be fair, they don't have the normal solid metal rod/cable from the handle to the lock, which I'm sure saved quite a bit of weight.  I really don't see why the Model 3 door handle and mechanism would be heaver than a normal door handle and mechanism. If anything it should be lighter.

The goal of 'good range' and the goal of 'fun to drive' are allowed to be a trade off.

[temperance]

The goal of 'good range' and the goal of 'fun to drive' are allowed to be a trade off.

That's what you make of it. How is a car with the ability to accelerate at the rate of a F1 car a trade off? That's not a trade off but stupidity. If he trully wanted to extend the range and save the planet, the rate of acceleration would be limited to much lower values. The claimed range quickly goes down the drain if you step and the accelerator just once. Nice trade off. Let's optimize the door handle because it makes us look good. Like we took care of things...

About the door handle wieght. Perhaps, but now you have two mechanism. One to extend the door handle and a second one to open the door. But anyhow, all this door handle talk drag is just nonsense.

[wilfred]

It's definitely an aerodynamics decision more than an aesthetics-led decision. There lots of these small range improving things done on the Model 3.

At an average speed of 50 km/h, the aerodynamics of a door handle, unless they would be huge in comparison to the width of the wheels and wheel arches, aren't going to have serious impact.
​

There are only two reasons the flush door handles were used. They're cheaper than custom components, and they're fashionably stylish. The cheap actuator modules used throughout cars today are able to eliminate a variety of custom mechanisms that used to release fuel filler doors, move dash vents and so on. Instead we have fragile modules with tiny plastic gears than get brittle over time and strip teeth. And then cost a fortune to get to to replace. but they are really easy to install on the assembly line.

Not sure what this has to do with Musk, He didn't invent the idea. But I get to rant again about my distaste for contemporary car design. Dn't even get me started on ultra expensive LED headlight assemblies where you can't just change the bulb.

[brucehoult]

Every little bit helps with EV's.  If you can have it, and the flush door handle is made intuitive, why not.

If Musk is about saving the planet with electric cars and going as far reducing the drag coefficient to very low numbers, then why are they build with the ability to accelerate at a rate exceeding those of a formula 1 car?

Because it turns out that if you're making an electric motor capable of handling 100 HP continuously to climb 8% grade freeways in the Rockies (e.g. I-70, I-80) at 80 MPH then it's probably pretty hard to make it so that it *can't* handle 400 HP for 5 seconds.

The same goes for lithium batteries. If the thing has 80kWh in it then 300kW is only 4C and 4C-5C is fine for 10-30 seconds. And people want to be able to nearly fully charge them at 2C or 3C or more and charging is much harder on a battery than discharging.

Accelerating from 0...100 requires the same energy no matter the rate.

Exactly! So there's no reason not to do it at whatever rate the tyres can handle. It's not inefficient. The energy consumption depends on your cruise speed, not on how quickly or slowly you get to it.

I completely agree that worrying about door handle drag is silly if you take it to the point that you lose usability. All modern cars have much more efficient door handle designs than the protruding designs of 50 years ago.

[temperance]

Exactly! So there's no reason not to do it at whatever rate the tyres can handle. It's not inefficient. The energy consumption depends on your cruise speed, not on how quickly or slowly you get to it

You skipped the losses part which increase exponential. This the reason a Tesla throttles back on power output after you've stepped on the gas multiple times in a row or keep on driving at very high speed because everything including the 700 kg battery pack starts to heat up. Heating up the motors and the battery pack requires quite a bit of energy.

[Cyclotron]

Tesla's ludicrous mode, holiday dances and other "features" are meant to draw people into buying what is mostly boring stuff.
No one needs launch mode, they want it.

The door handles being flush are an accumulated part of a low drag design.  I don't like them but I get why its an incorporated part of the design.
I think it was originally also considered "cool" and different which goes along with ludicrous mode and holiday dances.

[brucehoult]

Exactly! So there's no reason not to do it at whatever rate the tyres can handle. It's not inefficient. The energy consumption depends on your cruise speed, not on how quickly or slowly you get to it

You skipped the losses part which increase exponential. This the reason a Tesla throttles back on power output after you've stepped on the gas multiple times in a row or keep on driving at very high speed because everything including the 700 kg battery pack starts to heat up. Heating up the motors and the battery pack requires quite a bit of energy.

I didn't skip anything.

The power required to accelerate to 100 km/h in 1.5 seconds (your number .. no car does this) instead of 6 seconds is indeed four times higher, but the energy use is, as you also said, the same.

As for heating up the battery pack, no one does such full-on accelerations repeatedly in normal driving. That's purely for the race track, or showing off.

Good acceleration is in fact useful and even a safety benefit, for example in overtaking on short straights on a 2-lane road. Teslas make that a pleasure, as does even my turbo Subaru Outback which has a 6000 RPM red line but makes maximum the maximum 350 N.m torque already at 2400 RPM. I usually overtake with it locked into 5th gear because there is ample instant performance and staying under 3000 RPM or so there isn't even any noticeable effect on fuel economy.

[Cyclotron]

I've never seen a Cybertruck towing anything yet, but from this video, I suspect it would do ok.
Obviously, this is for click value, and there are a ton of unrealistic things in there.  I'd still take the Hummer for off-roading.
The race between the CT towing a trailer with a car on it and the Viper is interesting.  Even though it failed to meet Musk's production claims, and it's ugly as sin. It seems to do ok.
I'd rather have a Slate at this point, though.

[temperance]

Good acceleration is in fact useful and even a safety benefit, for example in overtaking on short straights on a 2-lane road.

And for that you need the acceleratiotn rate of an F1 car? People use those cars as weapons to take over other cars where you shouldn't but you do it anyhow because you can. Very safe indeed, well done.

750 kW of power. Did you take a calculator to calculate the losses at such redicilous power? You probably didn't. That's 2000 A at 375 V or 4 kW loss for every mOhm.

If you want I will calculate the cable requirements between a tesla running 2000 A trough a cable and a car limited to let's say 200 kW which is still about 260 hp. Anyone claiming you would need more than 260 hp for a passenger car is probably a fool. A 250 hp car would go from 0...100 in 6 sec and would only require 500 A with a battery voltage of 375 V.

The difference in I²R losses is not a small number.

Edit: If the goal is to save the panet like Musk claims, the answer lies in lightweight, propely sized 150–200 kW vehicles and cetainly not in a 2 ton killer rocket with battery cooling taken to extremes to support 2 kA. In order to achieve this, the batteries are packed in heat conductive epoxy. How on earth do you recycle this madness? You can't.

[Cyclotron]

Good acceleration is in fact useful and even a safety benefit, for example in overtaking on short straights on a 2-lane road.

And for that you need the acceleratiotn rate of an F1 car? People use those cars as weapons to take over other cars where you shouldn't but you do it anyhow because you can. Very safe indeed, well done.

750 kW of power. Did you take a calculator to calculate the losses at such redicilous power? You probably didn't. That's 2000 A at 375 V or 2 kW loss for every mOhm.

If you want I will calculate the cable requirements between a tesla running 2000 A trough a cable and a car limited to let's say 200 kW which is still about 260 hp. Anyone claiming you would need more than 260 hp for a passenger car is probably a fool. A 250 hp car would go from 0...100 in 6 sec and would only require 500 A with a battery voltage of 375 V.

The difference in I²R losses is not a small number.

Edit: If the goal is to save the panet like Musk claims, the answer lies in lightweight, propely sized 150–200 kW vehicles and cetainly not in a 2 ton killer rocket with battery cooling taken to extremes to support 2 kA. In order to achieve this, the batteries are packed in heat conductive epoxy. How on earth do you recycle this madness? You can't.

Any number of vehicles have enormously good weight-to-power ratios and can overtake suddenly. Motorcycles are a great example of both ICE and EV.

As for the saving the planet goal. There are carrot and stick methods, and since there's no stick to force people into an EV, you'd need to use a lot more carrot.
Musk appears to be heavily on the good side in pursuing the goal of "saving the planet," as it were. The creation of the EV market, or at least the validation that the economics were sufficient for it to exist, is a huge win.

I don't know what measure we'd judge him against, and this seems to ring of no true Scotsman as an argument to some extent. The argument that he's not done enough is fair. I mean, anyone can have that opinion, and I am not going to try to change their mind.